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Barbarella Bar and Bugatta owner Anat Escher opened a small, casual slice of The Boot today on Silver Lake's Hyperion Boulevard called Lago D'Argento Pizzeria. Like many recent Italian upstarts, D'Argento has Neapolitan pizzas tossed from its own homemade dough, along with dishes of duck sausage, meatballs al forno, and short rib pasta, in addition to that butterscotch budino that Nancy Silverton really should have tried to trademark, a la Francis Ford Coppola.

The coffee here comes from LAMill, while the man swinging his blade is exec chef Jay Mendoza, formerly the pastry chef at Ortolan and Churchill, who will oversee both the savories and the sweets here (six-dollar white chocolate bread pudding sounds like a potential draw).

The restaurant itself is a tight collection of leather booths with a central communal table, under hand-drawn murals by artist Robert Pereida. Starting today, D'Argento will be open seven days a week, with the French doors parting each afternoon at 4:00 P.M. Check out Mendoza's menu online.